


Always an Anchor Somewhere

by Lexie



Category: Star Wars Legends: X-wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole
Genre: Gen, How Plourr escapes Eiattu, POV Outsider, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 03:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9053560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/pseuds/Lexie
Summary: Sharp-tongued trader Minella Toth doesn't exactly move in circles that include royalty. Somehow, she meets Princess Isplourrdacartha Estillo three times anyway.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [athersgeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/athersgeo/gifts).



Not long after Minella's husband takes the position in the palace armory, he starts bringing home stories of a princess's royal misbehavior. 

"That girl is a live one," Garv says over dinner, laughing. "If you thought Galen was bad—"

Galen rolls his eyes, his mouth full of food, and his younger sister laughs. Galen's nearly the same age as the young princess, on the cusp of reaching his teenage years, and Minella ought to have named him Trouble.

"She runs wild through the palace," says Garv. He's shaking his head but grinning, because Minella married a man with a soft spot for wild creatures great and small. "There's always a tutor or a guard or three looking for her; she's always done something."

"Doesn't sound very royal to me," says Minella disapprovingly. "They just let her do whatever she wants?"

"Her father indulges her — probably too much," he adds, before Galen can get any ideas. "But it's plain to see he loves her."

Minella thinks Garv almost forgets, sometimes, that he's talking about the royal family. 

Minella always remembers.

Garv was the most conscientious, honest mechanic working in the market district, so it's both no surprise and a tremendous stroke of good fortune that he was able to secure the position at the palace. It's good work and even better coin, and with Minella's income from selling in the markets, they're able to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table for themselves and the kids. 

So Garv goes to the palace every day to help maintain the royal fleet, and he keeps coming home with stories about Princess Isplourrdacartha.

The young princess is a troublemaker through and through. She'd rather be racing thaks or sparring than attending to her lessons; she's always legging it through the palace, laughing and covered in dirt. With the succession falling to her older sister, Garv thinks she'll wind up with a military commission. 

"She's got a decent head for machines," he says.

"Decent head for _what_?" asks Minella, and that is how she finds out the princess has been visiting her husband in the hangar bay nearly every day.

It's one of the worst fights they've ever had. "She's a curious little thing; she just wants to know!" Garv insists. "I can't see any harm in teaching her a bit."

"Garv Toth, don't look above your station!" Minella snaps. "What will the emperor think of a mechanic second-class from Ikerite teaching a princess how to take apart a speeder bike? You could lose your job; we _need_ your job!"

They go to bed angry for three days before finally making it up.

It's not even half a cycle later when Garv comes home with an uncharacteristic hesitant look: he spoke about their family's preparations for the upcoming Harvest Festival celebration, in front of the princess, and she has asked to come and see the decorations.

"She wants to come here?" Minella demands, utterly aghast, but, child or not, there's no denying royalty. 

Princess Isplourrdacartha Estillo is practically vibrating with excitement when she steps through their door. Minella has polished their apartment to within an inch of its life, and it's still not clean enough; it never will be. She's got both kids scrubbed up and wearing their best, and she tried with Garv, though the damned stubborn man just will not trim his beard.

Princess Isplourrdacartha's elder sister, the heir-apparent of the royal house, takes after their graceful mother. Princess Kassenelfanden is always at her father's side in all the holos; always prepared with a disarming smile and a diplomatic comment.

Princess Isplourrdacartha isn't nearly the public figure that her sister is, and she certainly doesn't have half the polish. She's tall for her age, a gawky, solid girl with her mother's red hair, flanked by two enormous guards who take up positions at the door. The princess introduces herself with enough grace that Minella can see the coaching someone has obviously given her, and then, well. 

The visit goes exactly as Minella had expected; the way that her soft-hearted husband and this spoiled child clearly hadn't thought to consider.

The surprise in the princess's face as she takes in the size and state of their humble apartment; her guileless, thoughtless questions; how quiet she grows as she begins to realize how differently commoners live than she does. 

"Well, at least that's over with," Minella says grimly, once the princess and her minders have finally gone.

* * *

When the city goes mad three years later, Minella closes up shop early. There are wild tales from the palace; rumors that she refuses to put any stock in, before word from Garv. There is a thin trail of black smoke rising above the dome of the citadel, high above the city.

The long trip to bring the children to stay with Garv's sister — a taxing journey, even by landspeeder, through the heart of the deep bogs — had felt like overprotective paranoia, a month ago, but Minella's fiercely glad of it now.

When Garv comes home, he holds her close. "The Prims have taken control of the palace."

The emperor and empress have never done anything for Minella and her family. Neither has the Priamsta. She wonders how much will change, now, for herself and her family. She guesses nothing will.

"Talked to a guard, as I left," says Garv. "They're saying the royal family is dead."

"Even the children?" 

The princesses and the prince are young — the oldest a teenager, the youngest a toddler.

Garv nods, his head heavy, and Minella feels a sharp pang.

*

There's nothing to do but go about life, Minella figures. Garv does the washing up and she counts inventory for the shop. The news holos have clearly been taken over as well. They're reporting a successful transition of power despite 'resistance.' It's not openly stated that the royal family is dead. They clearly are.

If it seems to be safe, Garv will report to work tomorrow in the palace hangar bay. No matter who holds the throne, the royal fleet needs skilled mechanics. Garv will be safe, far beneath the notice of the nobles.

Still, Minella nearly jumps straight out of her skin when there's a buzz from their door's comm system. She looks at Garv, who's been leaning over the counter, glued to the news holos, and he shakes his head as he rises.

Maybe Minella was wrong; maybe someone knows that Garv had a soft spot for the second-oldest princess. 

"Garv," she says slowly, and he says, "Wait here," and picks up a vase on the way to the door. What that foolish man thinks he's going to do with a _vase_ if he's faced with Imperial stormtroopers or Priamsta shock troops, Minella doesn't know.

She reaches into the cutlery drawer and digs out the vibroblade that she carries to travel to the marketplace every day. She moves to the doorway between the kitchen and entranceway, and she watches and waits.

All at once, Garv's back stiffens. He puts the vase aside and punches the switch to open their front door. He reaches out and yanks whoever's standing there into the apartment, and then, just as quickly, he shuts the door again.

A tall figure wearing a mud-splattered dark cloak stands in the hallway, hands clenched at their sides. There's enough time for Minella to feel a wave of forboding begin to sweep through her, and then Garv reaches out and pushes back the stranger's hood to reveal a shock of red hair.

Minella inhales sharply.

It's been three years since Minella last laid eyes on Princess Isplourrdacartha in person, but the girl is utterly unmistakable.

" _Garv_ ," Minella snaps, terror flaring. 

"Are you hurt?" Garv asks the princess, hands on her shoulders, and she shakes her head. She's dry-eyed and looks uninjured, but sickly pale. "Princess, what are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry," she bursts out, "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have, but I remembered the way—"

"Hush, it's alright," says Garv, and he pulls her into his arms, the same way he would one of their kids. "It'll be alright." Over the girl's shoulder, he looks helplessly at Minella.

" _No_ ," says Minella strongly.

"Princess, I need a moment. _Stay here_ , don't move; do you understand?" As he speaks, he desperately draws the curtains, and then he ushers Minella into their tiny kitchen.

"Garv, they'll kill us all," she hisses. "You, me, the neighbors; probably the kids and your sister, too!"

"She's a _child_ , Minella. We can't put her out."

"She can't stay here!"

"Nella," he says, low, and he catches her elbows. "There's no time. She's come. It's already too late. Our best chance now is to help her escape without being seen."

Minella hates it when the man is right, but he is. There's no time for this.

She puts the vibroblade on the counter and goes back into the other room.

The princess is standing in the middle of the floor, exactly where she was left. Her hands are curled into fists. She likely heard everything. She wants to threaten to leave, Minella thinks, looking at the set of the girl's face, but she has nowhere else to go. Everyone she knows is undoubtedly either dead or has turned on her family. Hell's teeth.

Garv had reported earlier in the week that the royal family was spending the month at their summer palace, nearly an hour west of the capital city. "How did you get here?" says Minella, without ceremony. "Were you followed?"

"No," says the girl shortly. Her face is drawn. "I ran through the swamp to the guard station and stole a speederbike while they were all out. I left the speeder outside the east gate when I arrived here, and I came the rest of the way on foot." The cloak is too large for her — that was likely stolen, too.

Minella is, frankly, astonished she's made it this far. It was an audacious plan, especially for a teenager. Minella only wishes it hadn't ended on her doorstep. "Do you have any money? A way to get off-world?"

"No," Princess Isplourrdacartha says again.

"I'll have words with Cirit Endola," Garv says, reaching for his coat. "He knows the spaceport's trade manifest like the back of his hand. He'll be able to say who the loyalist captains are, and who has a departure scheduled."

"Garv, be _careful_ , for pity's sake," says Minella.

"I'm always careful," he says with a fool's grin, which he immediately tempers as he turns to the princess. "Princess, you'll need to come to the stationmaster's office at the spaceport by 2100. We can't risk open communication, so I won't be able to get word back here."

"I understand." She says, again, "Garv, I'm sorry," and her face finally begins to crumple.

She's a child. Her family is undoubtedly dead. "Go," Minella says to Garv. "Quickly."

When the door has rolled shut behind him, Minella turns to the princess. The girl turns her head and looks at her. Those dark eyes have clearly seen things a child should never.

Minella clears her throat. “You'll need a disguise, Your Highness," she says, no-nonsense.

"I have one," says the princess, looking down at her shapeless dark cloak. Beneath it, she's wearing the same sort of clothing that she wore when she visited three years ago — a wealthy family's idea of informality. Her boots alone are made of soft-looking thuvasaur leather and must have cost at least half of Galen's yearly school tuition.

"You're of a size with my boy," says Minella grimly. "Come on."

*

The princess is silent throughout the process of appropriating clothes from Galen's meager wardrobe. Her feet are too big for Galen's boots, so Minella takes an old pair of Garv's and shoves scraps of flimsi into the toes. 

The princess only flinches once, when the cutters close over her braid, the _snip_ loud in the quiet 'fresher. She sits in silence as Minella takes clippers to her head and soft red hair rains down around them, pooling at the feet of her borrowed boots. Minella will have to sweep up and burn that distinctive hair at the earliest possible opportunity.

Minella leaves the girl with a roll of bandages and instructions to bind her chest in the 'fresher, and she packs an old bag as fast as possible. She hesitates over the thuvasaur boots for several valuable seconds; they're a dead giveaway, but they can be sold for enough credits on the black market that they're worth the risk. She throws them in and then buries the bag at the bottom of a crate packed with bolts of counterfeit Koolachian silk.

The last thing Minella picks up is the vibroblade. She tucks it into her boot.

The girl who's waiting for Minella in the front room wears Galen's coarse brown pants, loose tunic, and second-best jacket. Her head has been shaved smooth and her eyes are shaded by the brim of a borrowed hat. Her height works in her favor; so do her broad shoulders and strong jaw, the cuts and scrapes across her face and hands from her escape. 

In low light, under a cursory glance, she'll pass as a farmboy escorting his mother. It'll have to do.

"It's ten minutes to the spaceport," says Minella, reaching for her own jacket. "We'll cut through the market; it's closed, this time of night, and it should be quiet. Keep your head down. No matter what happens, don't say a word to anyone."

Princess Isplourrdacartha's expression shifts. "You're coming?" The timbre of her voice wouldn't be unreasonable for a young boy, but her accent is too precise. She'll give it away the second she opens her mouth.

"Can't have you wandering the city alone in my boy's clothes and my husband's boots, now can I?" says Minella, and she pushes the crate she'd packed into the princess's arms. "Come on, quickly."

*

The air smells like smoke.

It's more fanciful than Minella's wont, but the city feels silent and still, throbbing with tension. Like a wounded thak quivering after being cornered by a thuvasaur, trying to decide whether it's going to make a run for it. 

The seasonal rains are due to arrive any day now. The air is thick and heavy with humidity, sending Minella's hair frizzing damply against her neck in the space of seconds. The princess must be sweating, wearing that jacket and carrying the heavy crate, but she doesn't make a sound of complaint, trailing Minella through the dark marketplace.

They pass several figures slipping through the market in the low light. All seem to be scurrying home to hide. No one hails them. The princess is a shadow, following just behind. She says nothing. 

Minella isn't given to sentimentality, but if she thinks too long about the look in that girl's eyes, she's going to think of her own children and it won't end well. Someone has to be practical. Someone has to make sure they all live through this.

"Not long now," Minella says, and then they turn onto the long avenue that leads out to the capital's spaceport.

There are six stormtroopers between them and the gates. They're standing beneath the warm glow of the globes that light the city at night, two troopers interrogating a pair of men in a landspeeder. The rest of the stormtroopers are standing at ease, blasters in hand, but that could easily change.

It's impossible to say what the Empire's role is, in all of this. Emperor Uthorrferrellcartha, and his father before him, bowed to the Empire in order to keep his throne. Darth Vader himself inspected the new Imperial garrison on-planet, last year — a rare honor for a Mid-Rim world that's several planets removed from the Ado sector hyperlane. The royal family was, at least technically, an ally of the Empire. The stormtroopers may not be here for the princess.

But with the family gone, it will be all the easier to install an Imperial governor. Who's to say the Prims haven't struck a deal with the local garrison?

Minella can't say for certain. Damn the nobles. Damn the royals. Damn the Empire.

The princess stops cold, beside her.

The terror is overwhelming, but Minella swallows it as best she can. "Keep walking," she says under her breath, sharply cuffing Princess Isplourrdacartha's arm and slowing down until the teenager lurches into motion alongside her again. "Don't say anything." 

Shooing along the speeder ahead, one of the stormtroopers turns their way. "Halt," he says, tinny through his helmet radio. "State your business."

Minella wills herself to keep walking steadily forward, toward them, and to ignore the tremble in her hands. If she kriffs this up, they'll be shot where they stand. "My fool of a husband forgot a crate of silk for the transport. We're taking it to him."

"Huh. Late, for a transport," says the second stormtrooper. Minella looks at only the pair of them. She ignores the other four figures in white standing a few meters away.

"I've got two little ones asleep at home; if that man thinks I'm waking up before the sun tomorrow to make a run down here with all the kids in tow, he's got another thing coming,” she says tartly.

It sounds like the first stormtrooper snorts. 

The second one, though, is still watching them. His helmet's black eyes look like endless pits. He turns toward the princess. "This one isn't saying much."

"He's at that age, you know," Minella says. She rolls her eyes. "At least he's good for carrying."

Behind her, Princess Isplourrdacartha grunts. Smart girl.

"Quit wasting my time with this," says the first stormtrooper to the second. He lifts his hand and impatiently waves them on. "Move along."

"Fine, fine; _you_ ask the questions next time," complains the second stormtrooper. "Move along."

Minella tucks her hands around the princess's arm and marches her through the gates, both of them shaking. 

*

Garv meets them in the stationmaster's office with a brown-furred Bothan woman who's wearing a blaster slung low on her hip — Captain Riskyr'ki, of the freighter _Corona Wind_. There aren't large numbers of Bothans living on Eiattu, but Captain Riskyr'ki speaks Basic with the flat intonation of someone raised among the fishing villages of the south continent.

"I can get you as far as StarForge Station," Captain Riskyr'ki says to the princess, with a respectful nod that clearly wants to be a bow. "You should be able to arrange your next transport there."

"You're going to leave her at StarForge?" Minella asks sharply.

"It's the best place in the sector to lose any pursuers," says Captain Riskyr'ki. 

It's also the best place in the sector to get recognized, robbed, or murdered, Minella thinks. It's a hyperdrive-capable shadowport deep in the StarForge Nebula, serving most of the illegal traffic operating along the Ado Spine. It's home to smugglers, ship thieves, and mercenaries.

Thousands of exactly the sort of person who a sheltered princess with a bounty on her head should be avoiding.

Minella looks at Garv, and sees her reservations reflected back in his eyes. "Surely Indupar would be a better option," Garv starts, and the Bothan captain shakes her head firmly.

"My ship would stand out like a sore thumb on Indupar. It would be too easy to trace us, and to trace where she continued on afterward," she says. "It has to be the station."

Princess Isplourrdacartha sets down the crate, hard, on the stationmaster's desk. The sound startles all three adults — Minella jumps, and the captain's hand momentarily flies toward her blaster. "I can take care of myself," says the princess, chin raised imperiously. "We'll go to StarForge Station."

"Right," says Captain Riskyr'ki, with a firm nod. "Our scheduled departure window is within the hour. I'm going to go warm up the ship." She nods to the princess again, and she exits the office.

Princess Isplourrdacartha turns toward Minella, bravado clearly failing her, and Minella finally lets grief well up for the girl standing there wearing her son's clothing.

"You'll be alright," Minella tells her roughly, and Princess Isplourrdacartha's mouth tightens; she looks down. "I packed a spare set of clothes and food that'll last you a few days, at least. But you can't tell anyone we helped you, and you can't contact us. Do you understand? It'll be the death of us all."

The princess flinches, and Minella hears her next breath rasp in her throat. "I won't."

"Take this." Minella pulls her vibroblade from the calf of her boot, and she hands it over. "Keep it in your boot. Be ready to use it." The princess is nodding, her dark eyes trained on Minella's face. "When you get to your first stop after the station, sell your old boots. Pretend you stole them. Don't take less than 4000 credits for them. It'll be a start."

Princess Isplourrdacartha nods again. She listens in a pinch; Minella will give her that.

"—Those new boots look familiar," says Garv, and the princess makes a choked noise that might have been a laugh, once, and flings her arms around his neck. She's nearly as tall as him. 

Garv's soft heart is going to be the death of them all, someday. 

*

Minella stands with Garv at the transparisteel wall in the stationmaster's office, as activity flurries on the pad below. The princess steps onto the freighter, bag slung over her shoulder, without looking back. The ship's ramp starts rising up before she's even all the way off of it. Captain Riskyr'ki is apparently in a hurry. Sensible woman.

"It was the right thing to do, Minella," says Garv.

"I never said it wasn't," she says. She leans against his side. "Just the foolish thing."

They watch the freighter's running lights go on. The ship rises on repulsorlifts, a steady hand clearly at the helm, and finally climbs into Eiattu's atmosphere. 

When it's a dot on the horizon, Garv says, "That girl will be back. You'll see."

It’ll be a long time before Minella knows how right he was.

* * *

It’s early in the morning, and there are two people arguing while leaning on the comm button for Minella's apartment.

She switches on her end of the comm, and says, "What do you want?"

Then the woman turns. "I'm looking for Minella Toth," she says, and even through a holo unit that fizzes and fuzzes like no tomorrow, there's no mistaking who's stood on the doorstep.

Minella stares.

"Plourr, I'd just like to once again register my reservations about the security of this trip," murmurs the second figure, looking from side to side. Speeder traffic is loud behind the pair of them.

"Shut up," says Princess Isplourrdacartha, and Minella keys her into the building.

It takes some time for the two of them to take the repulsorlift up and then to find Minella's door. Definitely not enough time for Minella to prepare her apartment for a visit from the empress heir-apparent.

Minella's waiting, when they finally turn the corner in the hall. "Come on, come inside already," she says impatiently, and she steps back to let her guests into the apartment. They both tower over her. The man, she doesn't immediately recognize, but even out of uniform, he has the look of a Priamsta noble. 

The princess, on the other hand, would fit right into any seedy tapcafe as a mercenary for hire, her vest stained and well-worn. She's wearing an empty holster at her hip that undoubtedly isn't typically empty. She looks like she could arm wrestle a Wookiee without breaking a sweat.

Minella can recognize bits of the child in that face. Her eyes are the same.

"Well," says Minella, looking all the way up at her. "You've grown a bit."

There's a soft noise from behind the princess that could be either surprise or amusement at her lack of respect, or maybe both. The Prim brings his reaction under control too quickly to say.

"It took me a while to get here," says Princess Isplourrdacartha. "You're a hard woman to find." 

"Not to be rude, Your Highness," says Minella, and then she proceeds with being rude, "but what do you want with me?" She can't imagine what it is, particularly in the wake of a well-publicized assassination attempt earlier in the week, which the empress heir-apparent had thwarted herself by breaking a man's nose in spectacular fashion. 

Minella has avidly watched nearly every speech, every appearance given, since the princess returned three months ago. She's seen the promises to rebuild; to care more for Eiattu's people than for the ability to collect wealth. This woman is much less formal, but every bit as hard-edged, as the one breathlessly reported on by the holo feeds. 

Instead of answering, the princess looks to her Priamsta companion. "Are you satisfied now that there aren't assassins lurking in the apartment?" She rolls her eyes.

"I was never concerned about your ability to defend yourself, my princess," he protests.

"Rial," she says, and she jerks her head meaningfully at the front door.

"He's only going to go stand outside my door," Minella says. "Which’ll get more interest from my neighbors than any of us want."

The man doesn't even bother to deny it. "I could fetch myself a glass of water, instead," he suggests, looking to Minella. It's a surprisingly adept suggestion, for a nobleman.

"Kitchen's that way," she says, jerking a thumb behind herself, and he slips past.

"I came to say I'm sorry about Garv, and to tell you if there's anything I can do for your family, it's yours," the princess says, low. "What you did for me..."

She's done her homework, anyway. Garv passed on last year. Minella still feels his loss like a physical ache. It's a shame he wasn't here for the princess's return — that's ten years' worth of 'I told you so' he's not here to say. The kids alone have been smug enough about it.

Minella nods to her guest.

"I can never repay what you did, but I can at least repay the money Garv slipped me," says the princess.

"Nearly divorced him over that when I found out, you know," says Minella. "You're thanking the wrong Toth. It was all that sentimental lump of a husband of mine."

"He's gone," says the princess bluntly, and then there's the slightest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. "You'll do."

Minella snorts despite herself. "I'll take the return of that loan, for starters," she agrees. "With interest.”

Princess Isplourrdacartha laughs.

Minella is a realist. She always left the hopes and dreams to Garv. But she thinks Eiattu is in good hands, now.


End file.
